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Not Strictly Confidential

Rex Makin, Cains pubs and more... a round-up of who and what is being talked about in Liverpool this week

Published on January 25th 2009.

REX Makin is spitting feathers after claiming he was snubbed when he was left off the so-called VIP line-up that greeted Prince Charles at the reopening of St George's Hall this week.

Sexie Rexie, as he is affectionately known by generations of the city's accused, is such a part of the Liverpool fabric that he is, irony aside, rhyming slang for bacon (“Can I have Rex Makin, eggs and beans, please?”).

The leading lawyer has officially complained to Liverpool Culture Company who organised the bash. He says they treated him with disrespect, during a lecture by HRH, by putting him in the fourth row back, alongside the likes of hairdresser Andrew Collinge.

As a trustee of St George’s Hall and the only Freeman of Liverpool present at the event, Sexie said: “I feel I was treated very shabbily.”

Anne Robinson, she of The Weakest Link, has inexplicably added her two-penneth to this mini-ruck: “It was a display of small-town pettiness. Rex Makin has put more into the city than anyone I know.”

But now that might be about to change. “I have, as a benefactor, given much to this city, but now I will have to revise my policy with regard to benefactions,” M'learned huffed after the event.

Meaning? What the lord giveth he can also taketh away, if the mood strikes him. So any local good causes feeling the pinch this year may be ruing the day that Sexie was made to sit with the riff-raff.

Them VIP lists eh?

*GOOD news for Big Issue vendors. Sales are reportedly bouncing along, and a glance at the mag, at least the Big Issue in the North, may reveal the reason. Slick looking layouts and snappy features have taken it to a new level of quality, and all at the hands of Liverpool-born hacks Kevin Gopal and Lianne Steinberg who are currently running the show up here.

But a chat with our chap and his dog, who shiver outside our Merseyrail station selling the mag, reveals another explanation. A so-called pitch-battle is being fought on Big Issue turfs all over the country between local vendors and their homeless counterparts from Romania, with everybody scrambling for as many of those £1.40s as possible.

Allegedly, some of the brass-neck tactics that have been employed by the Romanian sellers would embarrass even their fellow expats The Cheeky Girls. The tempers and hackles of established vendors have risen into the stratosphere, he tells us, and so it's actually this hardest of hard sells, albeit unsanctioned, which is pulling the dosh in.

If only Kev's former paper, the North West Enquirer, had adopted such a forward thinking sales strategy.

*ST George's Hall is open to the public until Sunday, and tourists to the city can see how Liverpool once did it in enviable style, with the amazing Minton tiled floor on display, not to mention the breathtaking exterior.

They can also visit the former holding cells and examine slop buckets with realistic brown liquids and fragrances emanating forth.

Some wag has also had the idea of pumping the cells with artificially-created scents – including sweat and urine – to give visitors, including HRH the other day, a more “authentic” experience.

They needn't have gone to so much trouble. They could have just taken Charles up to any Ropewalks bar for cocktails and dancing until 4am and then stepped out into the fresh air for a nostril-filling whiff of the real thing.

*TWO Cains pubs have been presented with a Beautiful Beer Gold Awards after coming through a rigorous “cellar to glass” inspection of their draught and bottled beers.

Licensees at The Brewery Tap and Doctor Duncan’s passed their Beautiful Beer Award assessments earlier this month with flying colours and collected commemorative plaques. There are few finer things in life than a good pint of Cains, so little surprise.

Beautiful Beer Awards aren't given out lightly. Not lightly at all: in fact pub licensees have to cough up £150, just for an inspector to turn up.

For the pub that passes muster there is an award and that plaque; even “help with local PR” - not that bon viveurs and Cains head honchos Ajmail and Sid Dusanj need any assistance in that department.

Paying for gongs is nothing new, just ask New Labour; countless hotels and restaurants display impressive stickers in their windows, mostly obtained at a price.

What's more, landlords wanting to keep their Gold Awards and plaques will have to fork out again: Another £110 in 12 months' time, in fact, for the “Beautiful Beer Assessor” to return to sample a few more scoops. Nice work if you can get it.

There's just one thing we don't understand. Why you have to be beautiful to be a beer assessor?

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Poor old sausage. Rex puts all his loot into the city - and did you know he donated mucho dosho to St George's Hall restoration? - and then is relegated to the fourth row....the fecking fourth row indeed, and forced to mingle with hairdressers! The world is falling apart....

Does anybody actually know why the city gave this bitter and twisted old man freedom of the city? As far as I can see the only people he has ever helped is Liverpool's criminal fraternity. He is absolutely detested by the legal profession in Liverpool, and most other people who've had the misfortune to meet him. I don't know how he has time to run his shabby law firm as he seems to spend most of his time spouting bile about those he hates (and there appear to be thousands) in his nonsensical column in the local paper.

Serves Rex right. He has thrown hissy fits too often over the years and people get fed up with him. It's lovely of him to fork out large sums to put his family name over various buildings like a Victorian philanthropist but he seems to think this allows him to behave like a diva and flounce about if people don't bow and scrape low enough and often enough. He offends and upsets people for the fun of it then wonders why they don't want him at their parties thereafter. How old is he? Time to stop throwing toys out of the pram, Rex.

These VIP lists are all a myth. I honestly feel very uneasy about stuff like that. And it's only Charlie anyway. Not like it's god or someone who matters. And who was in the VIP line-up anyway? Atomic Kitten probably. No, Rex was better of in the cheap seats while everyone rattled their jewellery

Please Mr Makin act your age please. At the end of the day, has the world come to an end, have you lost your thousands upon thousands of cash? No? Well grow up and realise you are being very petty and have some consideration for the thousands in the city who are lucky to get a bed at night never mind meet an old sod who wil be lucky to make king at all. As for Ms Robinson she seems to like stirring things up just for the hell of it, ignore the silly bint.

I suppose in one way, Rexy has got a valid complaint, but does it really matter at the end of the day? Ann Robinson also said the it was small town petty mindedness which kept him out of the vip line up, well I think that by reacting in this way, Rex Makin is playing the same petty-minded small town game. Get over it Rex!!!